Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1887-07-13
THE OLD STONE FORT.
An American Antiquity Located I'm Coffee
County, Tennessee.

An American Antiquity Located in Coffee
County, Tennessee.
If the concentric rings in trees are
correct index Of their age, that mys-
terious structure near Manchester, Cot
fee County, Tenn, called the Old
Stone Fort, is of very ancient origin.
The trees growing on the rude stone
walls that surround the old structure
show, by their rings, fully five hundred
years growth. These trees, now be-
ing cut away, are the only witnesses to
the age of the stone work. Will their
testimony be accepted by historians?
Will the antiquarians ever find out who
built that old stone fort, and for what
purpose? If any investigators wish to
examine these old trees, they should do
SO pretty soon, as they are rapidly dis
appearing.
There is nothing in Tennessee, or in
the South, whose antiquity is so mys-
terious and entirely beyond the do
main of decent speculation as the Old
Stone Fort, which is about one mile
and half below the town of Man
chester
The two prongs of Duck River come
within, say, two hundred yards of
each other, and then widen out, MAX
ing territory of perhaps one thou
sand acres in the forks of the river,
and below the Narrows. At the Mar
rows the fort commences by stone
wall, now covered with earth, running
from one river to the other, and there
the walls are built along the banks of
both rivers down to a point where a
canal had been cut, from one river
to the other; there q wall is
made from one river to the other,
perhaps quarter of mile. On the
outside of this wall is hollow, and in
this hollow is the sign of the canal or
cut, evidently intended to protect the
fort by both the wall and the canal.
From the upper to the lower wall,
at places. there are high bluffs on both
rivers. Wherever this bluf;-preci-
pitous-is found, there is no wall, but
wherever there is no natural barrier
the wall is built. The entrance to the
fort was at the upper end, and the
gateways show that the builders were
doing their work intelligently The
entrance is by a narrow pass-way, with
walks on either side, and offsets so as
the enemy on the outside from
having direct entrance for them
selves, and so as to protect those on the
inside from missiles from the outside.
The fort contains forty-seven acres,
and is, or was when the writer first
saw it, heavily timbered, many of the
trees of large size growing on top of
the walls
Colonel Sam Murray, who settled
there about 1903, cut one of the trees
from the top of the wall and found it
to be about five hundred years old.
One mile up the river from the fort is
an immense mound-the largest one
perhaps in the country-making it
probable the fort was built by the
mound-builders. Beyond this nobody
knows anything about it. Colonel
Murray, who was man of high intel
Hgence, claimed to have conferred with
the Indians of different tribes, but
none of them could give him any ac-
count of it, either by tradition or 9th
erwise.
This fort is one of the many evil
dences that in this country, at some
remote period, there was race of
people of more stability and intelli-
gence than the rowing Indians whom
AMERICAN